Trump In Charge: Wrecking Ball
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So now we know what Trump is mad at Panama about. And it's not the canal.
www.newsweek.com
Trump Organization Accused of Tax Evasion in Panama: What We Know
Published Dec 23, 2024 at 9:26 AM EST
What's New
President-elect Donald Trump has started a quarrel with Panama over the fees it's charging American ships to use the Panama Canal, while the Trump Organization is fighting a court case over taxes in the central American country.
What to Know
In June 2019, the owners of a Panama City hotel that was managed by Trump's businesses, and carried the Trump brand, accused two companies, Trump Panama Hotel Management LLC and and Trump International Hotels Management LLC, of not paying taxes on their Panamanian earnings.
In a filing to the U.S. district court in New York, private equity manager Orestes Fintiklis and his company, Ithaca Capital Partners, alleged that the Trump businesses failed to pay 12.5% taxes on the millions of dollars they earned from managing the Panama City hotel. They also alleged that the Trump units failed to correctly report the number of people the hotel employed so that he could avoid Panamanian social security payments.
The filing documented how the Panamanian government later conducted a tax audit on the hotel and found major irregularities. Fintiklis and his company were forced to pay the money Trump owed, the court filing alleged.
In an updated complaint filed in the same court on March 30, 2020, Fintiklis' attorneys complained that "had Trump been honest with Ithaca about its failure to pay taxes on the management fees it earned and its failure to properly report employee salaries to Panama's social security agency, Ithaca would have never entered into the [licensing deal] because, among other things, (i) Ithaca would have recognized the significant, multi-million dollar tax penalty that could be imposed by the Panamanian government once it started auditing the Hotel; and (ii) Ithaca would have known that the representations made by Trump described above were false in that the Hotel was suffering from significant financial irregularities."
The litigation is still before the courts.
Newsweek sought comment on Monday from Fintiklis, Ithaca Capital Partners and the Trump Organization. Newsweek also contacted the Trump-Vance transition team and Panama's economy and finance ministry.
Why It Matters
The issue is important because Trump is potentially pushing the U.S towards conflict with Panama after accusing the country of financial wrongdoing.
Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. could demand the return of the Panama Canal if Panama doesn't reduce fees on U.S. goods passing through the canal.
The key waterway is crucial for the world's economy, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
"The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the U.S. This complete 'rip-off' of our Country will immediately stop," Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday.
"The United States has a vested interest in the secure, efficient, and reliable operation of the Panama Canal, and that was always understood. We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands! It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama," he wrote.
Panama's president, José Raúl Mulino, replied with a video posted on X: "Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belong to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama."
Trump replied on Truth Social: "We'll see about that."
Trump Organization accused of tax evasion in Panama: What we know
A hotel owner has accused Trump of evading millions of dollars in taxes in Panama.
www.newsweek.com
Trump Organization Accused of Tax Evasion in Panama: What We Know
Published Dec 23, 2024 at 9:26 AM EST
What's New
President-elect Donald Trump has started a quarrel with Panama over the fees it's charging American ships to use the Panama Canal, while the Trump Organization is fighting a court case over taxes in the central American country.
What to Know
In June 2019, the owners of a Panama City hotel that was managed by Trump's businesses, and carried the Trump brand, accused two companies, Trump Panama Hotel Management LLC and and Trump International Hotels Management LLC, of not paying taxes on their Panamanian earnings.
In a filing to the U.S. district court in New York, private equity manager Orestes Fintiklis and his company, Ithaca Capital Partners, alleged that the Trump businesses failed to pay 12.5% taxes on the millions of dollars they earned from managing the Panama City hotel. They also alleged that the Trump units failed to correctly report the number of people the hotel employed so that he could avoid Panamanian social security payments.
The filing documented how the Panamanian government later conducted a tax audit on the hotel and found major irregularities. Fintiklis and his company were forced to pay the money Trump owed, the court filing alleged.
In an updated complaint filed in the same court on March 30, 2020, Fintiklis' attorneys complained that "had Trump been honest with Ithaca about its failure to pay taxes on the management fees it earned and its failure to properly report employee salaries to Panama's social security agency, Ithaca would have never entered into the [licensing deal] because, among other things, (i) Ithaca would have recognized the significant, multi-million dollar tax penalty that could be imposed by the Panamanian government once it started auditing the Hotel; and (ii) Ithaca would have known that the representations made by Trump described above were false in that the Hotel was suffering from significant financial irregularities."
The litigation is still before the courts.
Newsweek sought comment on Monday from Fintiklis, Ithaca Capital Partners and the Trump Organization. Newsweek also contacted the Trump-Vance transition team and Panama's economy and finance ministry.
Why It Matters
The issue is important because Trump is potentially pushing the U.S towards conflict with Panama after accusing the country of financial wrongdoing.
Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. could demand the return of the Panama Canal if Panama doesn't reduce fees on U.S. goods passing through the canal.
The key waterway is crucial for the world's economy, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
"The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the U.S. This complete 'rip-off' of our Country will immediately stop," Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, on Sunday.
"The United States has a vested interest in the secure, efficient, and reliable operation of the Panama Canal, and that was always understood. We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands! It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama," he wrote.
Panama's president, José Raúl Mulino, replied with a video posted on X: "Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belong to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama."
Trump replied on Truth Social: "We'll see about that."
Losing lawsuits and paying fines and fees is his biggest fear after going to jail.
The last bill to keep the government open that passed differed from the original sunk by Trump in one aspect. A clause that added restrictions to US investments in China was removed. And guess who is currently engaged in building a $200 million battery factory in Shanghai next door to his auto factory? Yup. Elon Musk! He got to keep his free hand to continue to support Chinees manufacturing.
Voidwalkin
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Interestingly, from a pure business perspective, Musk played the link between the political and the economic to lucrative results. Generally, in ancient Rome, one got power first, then money. In America, one gets money first, parlays it into influence, and then gets more money.
Net worth has shot up on mere expectation of quid pro quo from Trump, by tens of billions. It was argued he would ruin Twitter. I suppose, from perspective of many of its (former) users, he has(never used it personally). He understood its microphone could prominently leverage his influence more than simply money alone could. He got the modern American link. Really well. Cunningly, even, for a dude opponents believe a total incompetent doofus.
Always interesting how so many with zero experience or knowledge of the platform opine so strongly about it.
Anyhow, if the perspective of its users isn't compelling, just trust the opinion of shareholders and former advertisers on the platform instead. There's a reason he took it private.
Narz
keeping it real
He won't.
The users don't pay the bills. Anyway was a means to an end, maybe he'll sell it now.
The users were a significant factor in its value at the time of his purchasing it. This is why it declined prior to him taking it private.
The users also engage with ads, which was the main revenue model for the platform. Chasing away both advertisers and users is a lose-lose so far as paying the bills go.
Which decline do you mean? When he bought it stopped being a listed company, the decline in ad revenue mostly happened after this. The stock price had dropped from the post-pandemic highs, but there are a lot of explanations for that.
Narz
keeping it real
When you're rich you can lose a few billion here and there and now he's basically president.
Maybe I got the timeline wrong. My core point was that it declined in value, which it did.
Okay, and? What does that have to do with what I'm talking about?
How to cut $2 Trillion from the Federal budget?
Voidwalkin
Emperor
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MAGA continues to quarrel over visas, with the hardliners continuing to attack Musk.
Dems quarrel similarly over AOC losing the vote for some sort of administrative role. Pelosi is blamed, said to have a vendetta. Which I believe. How she operates, historically.
Unclear which team is more hamstrung. The Trump controversy is much higher profile, but, Republicans fall in line, as they say.
Dems quarrel similarly over AOC losing the vote for some sort of administrative role. Pelosi is blamed, said to have a vendetta. Which I believe. How she operates, historically.
Unclear which team is more hamstrung. The Trump controversy is much higher profile, but, Republicans fall in line, as they say.
THE MAN IS JUST PLAIN NUTS.
President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal on Tuesday in a rambling media appearance during which he also complained about electric heaters that cause itching, suggested that the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, and continued his lying about the criminal cases against him. “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” he said in response to a question about use of the military in the two territories, one controlled by Denmark and the other by Panama. “It might be that you’ll have to do something.”
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said, adding that it has only 45,000 residents. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
Regarding the canal, Trump claimed that China had taken control and that the United States was being treated unfairly. “We gave the Panama to Panama. We didn’t give it to China, and they’ve abused it. They’ve abused that gift,” he said.
Trump will take office in 13 days after American voters returned him to the presidency, despite the coup he attempted on Jan. 6, 2021, to remain in power after losing his reelection bid in 2020.
Advertisement
His attempts to overturn that election loss resulted in felony criminal charges against him by the Department of Justice — which Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed he had beaten in court. “I defeated deranged Jack Smith. He’s a deranged individual, I guess he’s on his way back to the Hague. And we won those cases,” Trump said in one of several statements disparaging special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutions against him. In fact, both federal cases against Trump — the Jan. 6 one as well as the one charging him for retaining secret documents at his South Florida country club despite a subpoena demanding their return — were dismissed after Trump won back the White House because of longstanding DOJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president.
Advertisement
Trump’s 70-minute-long appearance at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach was typical of his exchanges with reporters, in which he mixes extended grievances, false boasts and promises of actions that he often does not take. Trump, for example, claimed yet again that he oversaw the best economy in U.S. history during his first term, which is not true. He complained that President Joe Biden, through his decision to ban oil drilling in coastal waters, would cost the country $50 to $60 trillion dollars — a figure that appears to be entirely made up.
He attacked Smith at length, falsely claiming, as he has many times in recent years, that the prosecutions were unfounded. Trump’s coup attempt took place on live television, and he has admitted that he took the secret documents with him, although he claims he had an ownership right to them — even though U.S. law says he does not.
He repeated provably false conspiracy theories, such as the claim that the FBI instigated the attack on the Capitol four years ago or that insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed as she climbed through a broken window into a room from which members of Congress were being evacuated, was actually trying to “hold back the crowd.”
On Tuesday, he even intimated — with zero evidence — a role by Hezbollah that day at the Capitol: “We have to find out about Hezbollah. We have to find out who, exactly, was in that whole thing.”
President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal on Tuesday in a rambling media appearance during which he also complained about electric heaters that cause itching, suggested that the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, and continued his lying about the criminal cases against him. “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” he said in response to a question about use of the military in the two territories, one controlled by Denmark and the other by Panama. “It might be that you’ll have to do something.”
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said, adding that it has only 45,000 residents. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
Regarding the canal, Trump claimed that China had taken control and that the United States was being treated unfairly. “We gave the Panama to Panama. We didn’t give it to China, and they’ve abused it. They’ve abused that gift,” he said.
Trump will take office in 13 days after American voters returned him to the presidency, despite the coup he attempted on Jan. 6, 2021, to remain in power after losing his reelection bid in 2020.
Advertisement
His attempts to overturn that election loss resulted in felony criminal charges against him by the Department of Justice — which Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed he had beaten in court. “I defeated deranged Jack Smith. He’s a deranged individual, I guess he’s on his way back to the Hague. And we won those cases,” Trump said in one of several statements disparaging special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutions against him. In fact, both federal cases against Trump — the Jan. 6 one as well as the one charging him for retaining secret documents at his South Florida country club despite a subpoena demanding their return — were dismissed after Trump won back the White House because of longstanding DOJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president.
Advertisement
Trump’s 70-minute-long appearance at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach was typical of his exchanges with reporters, in which he mixes extended grievances, false boasts and promises of actions that he often does not take. Trump, for example, claimed yet again that he oversaw the best economy in U.S. history during his first term, which is not true. He complained that President Joe Biden, through his decision to ban oil drilling in coastal waters, would cost the country $50 to $60 trillion dollars — a figure that appears to be entirely made up.
He attacked Smith at length, falsely claiming, as he has many times in recent years, that the prosecutions were unfounded. Trump’s coup attempt took place on live television, and he has admitted that he took the secret documents with him, although he claims he had an ownership right to them — even though U.S. law says he does not.
He repeated provably false conspiracy theories, such as the claim that the FBI instigated the attack on the Capitol four years ago or that insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed as she climbed through a broken window into a room from which members of Congress were being evacuated, was actually trying to “hold back the crowd.”
On Tuesday, he even intimated — with zero evidence — a role by Hezbollah that day at the Capitol: “We have to find out about Hezbollah. We have to find out who, exactly, was in that whole thing.”
Trump wants his DC hotel back for his second term!
www.foxbusiness.com
The Trump Organization eyes deal to convert DC Waldorf-Astoria back into Trump International Hotel: report
The Trump Organization is eying a potential deal to reclaim the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., from the Waldorf-Astoria brand.
www.foxbusiness.com
Of course this has nothing to do with the scam where he charges the US treasury and other entities exorbitant fees to house Secret Service, dignitaries and other VIPs to stay in Washington nearby the Capitol.Trump wants his DC hotel back for his second term!
The Trump Organization eyes deal to convert DC Waldorf-Astoria back into Trump International Hotel: report
The Trump Organization is eying a potential deal to reclaim the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., from the Waldorf-Astoria brand.
I'm wondering if I should start a thread about Canada's political issues with Trump. I mean, he wants to annex us, after all. And no, the tendency here is not to dismiss it as mere trolling. Considering that this is all over FB and YT, the silence here is deafening.
Not silence... as you know, this is already being discussed in the Trump v. Greenland/Panama Thread
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/should-the-us-invade-greenland-denmark-panama.693932/
And BJ mentioned it also in this very Thread:
I will admit that I tend to view Trump's talk about annexing Canada as typical Trump distraction-trolling. He does this constantly... saying insanely ridiculous, unhinged and nonsensical things to distract from some other, more substantive, but equally horrific thing he said/did, or is in the process of doing and/or not doing.Trump: Making Canada the 51st state is a ‘great idea’
The U.S. president-elect continues to bait Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Donald Trump’s trolling again … or is he?
Early on Wednesday the United States president-elect suggested turning Canada into a part of the U.S., calling it “a great idea.” “No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense! Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State. They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea. 51st State!!!” he boomed on his social media platform.
It’s not the first time in recent days Trump has needled Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which was rocked by the bombshell resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. “The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau,” Trump wrote Monday. “Her behavior was totally toxic and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!!”
The mocking posts land amid tensions between the two countries after Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods and accused the government of failing to address trade and immigration issues. After meeting with Trudeau at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in late November, Trump started calling Trudeau the “Governor” of the “Great State of Canada.” “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” he wrote. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT.”
Trump: Making Canada the 51st state is a ‘great idea’
The U.S. president-elect continues to bait Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.www.politico.eu
In this case, I think that one thing he is trying to keep the news cycle off of... is his promise to famously "bring grocery prices down" and more broadly, to halt/reverse inflation, ostensibly with tariffs... which is incidentally, the excuse so many are giving for why he won the election/why people voted for him. That promise was always a lie and a scam, like everything else he says and he is diligently trying to distract the media from relentlessly exposing/focusing on that. He's already admitted/backtracked that he can't/won't lower prices... but he does not want media covering that. The other thing he does not want coverage of, is immigration, because that is the other big thing people point to as why he was elected and/or why they voted for him... but again, he isn't going to keep his promises on immigration either.
"Annex Canada" is just another one of his preposterous distraction attempts. The more he can keep the media focused on the latest crazy thing he says, the less coverage there will be on things he really finds damaging to him, and more importantly, the less focused and less credible media will seem overall.
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Zardnaar
Deity
Well one state they get 2 senators smd probably 4 congressional seats.
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